


Rondo Of Souls

by Dromaeosauridae



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, F/F, Gratuitous puns, POV First Person, Slow Burn, because our hero is a prat, characters age throughout the story, depictions of prejudice and bullying, spoilers for the pokemon mystery dungeon series, the f/f isn't entirely explicit for a while but don't you worry it's there, the rating will likely jump to M in later chapters but all chapters currently uploaded are T, unfortunately more complex than our hero lets on at first, will be tagged with new data when appropriate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dromaeosauridae/pseuds/Dromaeosauridae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thyme is a Cubone. By this, it is meant that she was once a human.</p><p>She is relatively neutral about this recent development of not being a human. </p><p>However, she is not neutral about this Snivy that will not ever leave her alone because they're both shiny. How many times can Thyme introduce herself to the same person without going slightly barmy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Cordial Welcome [PROLOGUE]

_There once were Pokemon that became very close to humans._

_There once were humans and Pokemon that ate together at the same table._

_It was a time when there existed no differences to distinguish the two._

_\---_

It was calm and I did not feel anything, floating as a thought in a pastel sea. As I spread my limbs, ripples of brilliant lime green formed and lazily drifted away into the infinite space. I had been floating for a time longer than I could comprehend, with little to indicate that anything would change. My thoughts had ceased a millennia ago. I was a relic of what I was once; humanity didn’t really have much of a point here, after all. 

As I drifted listlessly through the currents without end, something began to change. A bright iridescent light shone on me, and before I knew it, I was in the clouds. A pokemon that I did not recognise was in front of me, black, blue and mournful. They bowed as their voice rang out without them opening their mouth, eyes unblinkingly centred on me even as their shoulders dipped. I felt my humanity return with an unwelcome ring and a blast of migraine. 

“Welcome, Mistress. Allow me to cordially introduce you to the world.” 

 _W-what? Where am I? What is this place?_ I thought. The migraine intensified and I struggled not to fracture and split under those unblinking red eyes. 

“This is the space between worlds, between the one you originate from and the one you are headed towards. An intermediary between time and space, light and darkness if you will, Mistress.” The pokemon responded, waving a dark arm through a cloud and watching it implode before it immediately regenerated again.

 _…And why am I here?_ I thought back as I fought against the pressure on myself, which made the sensation worse.

“You’re this world’s chosen saviour, elected by choice and action. The messiah that signals the downfall and brings about rebirth. We have been waiting for you a rather long time, Mistress, and the world we are headed towards is in a state of fear and disarray.”

 _You have? How long?_ I felt a sudden wetness in my ears and I tried not to choke.

"For an eternity, Mistress. Now, I believe it is time for you to begin your work. There is little we can discuss further in your current mindset." The pokemon broke eye contact with me at last and the pain alleviated as I crumpled into the clouds. I had not even realised I was standing until I was back on my knees.

 _Hang on, isn’t that a bit abrupt? I don’t even know what I’m doing!_ I protested as I struggled back onto my feet, panting. I preferred being a mindless wisp to whatever this god-forsaken pokemon had in mind for me. I felt nothing other than pain and distrust, which the pokemon seemed to be ignoring on purpose. 

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, Mistress. There is no time like the present for a proactive person like you.” Lights imploded into ink in my mind with an even larger dose of skull splitting pain and the sensation of falling.

“We will be eagerly waiting for your results, Mistress. Au revoir.” I saw the pokemon's face split into an expression I could not determine with my dimming vision as they rose up, up above where I could reach.

I descended into darkness as I screamed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, I never thought I would ever be posting any manic keyboard mashings of mine online! Blimey, I'm kinda nervous...
> 
> Any feedback is welcomed, and if you see any cases of dodgy grammar or a misspelt word that isn't so due to British syntax feel free to laugh at me about it so I can fix it up; I'm not good at words because my parents didn't learn me reyt. 8(


	2. A Bone To Pick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's an amnesiac to do in a forest?

I awoke to the sound of water on water, the crashing deluge of a waterfall louder than I could think. However, the sound of water wasn’t an awful sound to my ears; my throat was dry and breathing felt like sand trickling down my throat. I groaned, sat up and crawled my way over to the sound, my eyes sealed shut by sleep-crust; I jumped in surprise when I slipped down a sharp drop, making a large splashing noise. Feeling cool water around my dropped hand all the way up to my elbow, I dip my head into the source of the splash and drink until I am sated. Refreshed, I fall backwards onto the ground, water running into my nostrils and making me sneeze.

“That’s better,” I said to myself, sniffling a little to clear out my sinuses. “But where am I?” Finally opening my eyes, I saw that I was laid out next to a pool of clear water, so clear I could see some Magikarp swimming around lazily near the bottom. Trees surrounded the clearing like sentinels, making no sound except for a faint rustle in the warm breeze. It was a wonderful day, the sun shining, my skin warmed by glorious rays of gold. I felt my muscles involuntarily relax in the pleasant atmosphere, the tension that I had not even I realised I had been carrying suddenly released from my muscles.  I was not sure why on earth I would be so tense in a place such as this, but I relaxed anyway.

Unfortunately, I still had no idea where I was.

I looked down at myself to see if my past self left me any clues. I saw a pair of green arms and a cream stomach, both glittering slightly in the sunlight, as if my skin was imbedded with quartz. I did not remember the human body being that way, even as unlearned as I was in the subject of biology. “Well, this isn’t right, is it?” I muttered, looking around for something to better examine myself with and eventually deciding to use the surface of the water, angling myself so that the surface became a mirror. 

An aged skull with a noticeable chunk taken out of one of the horns on top of a stout yet shimmery green lizard is what looked back at me. I break out in a cold sweat as I watched my reflection lift an arm to pinch itself. The pain of the pinch was mild, but I did not wake from the dream I was not having. 

_Yeah, that’s me. I’m not dreaming._

“…A shiny Cubone. Really? I couldn’t just be a normal Cubone, could I?” I jabbered to myself, still a little numb from the shock that I didn’t have ten toes anymore. “Nope, I had to be a glittery dinosaur covered in bones!” I looked around for a club, considering what I was. There was nothing to be seen, the clearing devoid of bones other than the one on my head. “And I don’t even have the minimum amount of bones!” I yelled, fuming. “Where would I have left it, I have to remembe-“

_Oh. I don’t remember anything whatsoever before this clearing. Oops! Well, except my name, but that won’t help me find a club._

(When I recited this story to my partner later on in life she laughed, saying it was just like me to be worrying about smaller details like that rather than on the transition of human to Cubone. I told her to shut up.)

Annoyed and confused, I sat back down pouting, eyes scanning the clearing for clues of how I had ended up here (and where I could procure a skeleton), but the only things around me were the trees, pool… and a group of Beheeyem floating into the clearing from the depths of the forest, flashing lights between each other. Reaching some sort of agreement in tandem, they began to approach me. Curious, I clambered back to my feet and watch them approach, noticing they were making a beeline straight towards me. _Are they looking for something? I'm not the person to asking about exposition on the area, honestly._

Without a beat wasted and with no explanations given, they attacked. Startled, I clamber out of the way of their sudden explosive barrage of Zen Headbutts, but they continued to smash towards me without reason or rhyme. Given no other real choice being without a weapon and in an unfamiliar body, I begin to run for my life into the forest, smashing through the low lying brambles with my skull to avoid cutting myself. I wasn’t going as fast as I would have liked, but I was still easily outpacing the naturally sluggish Beheeyem as they slalomed through the trees behind me. However, they did not have to run, instead being propelled by psychic power which would likely outlast my untrained flesh and bone. I saved the pun ‘flesh and bone’ into my mind for later as I headbutted my way through a dried out sapling choked out underneath the canopy, panting wildly.

Running is a lot easier when you have longer legs. 

I ran through that forest until I could run no longer. Collapsing onto my limbs into a growth of damp moss, I dry retch and tremble, looking behind me in the hope I had gotten away clean. I feel the air, so cool compared to the sunny clearing, shake the trees around me. I would have shivered, if I hadn’t already been shaking like a dying leaf. I was all out of quips, my energy sapped.

“Um, are you alright, kid?” A voice rang through my head, dizzyingly distant yet with a worrying proximity. Without thinking in a haze of exhaustion and fear, I open my mouth and try to scream. No noise comes out, but a large beam of freezing energy does. The beam fires into the sky and explodes, freezing moisture as it does and causing a shower of frozen shards to obliterate the area around me. Completely spent, my eyes rolled into the back of my head as I faded out. 

———

"...!" 

_Ugh, leave me be, I just ran through a forest fearing for my life. Can a girl not have some rest?_

"...Kid...!"

_Who is that, anyway? Look, the lights aren't on and no-one's home. Come back later._

“Hey, kid! Stay with me! C’mon!” I felt myself being shaken harshly, mushing up my brains a little bit more. “Kid!” I’m slapped on the skull and my eyes snap open for the second time that day. 

“Ow,” I winced with only the merest hint of petulance as I rubbed my skull. “That’s tender!”

“Really? Huh. I didn’t think that Cubones could feel under those things,” the voice replied as I focused on the speaker. Humanoid shaped, with puffed out thighs and a long nose - this guy was a Nuzleaf, completely average for his kind except for a leaf which was unusually long, thin and covered in frost, although I suspected that the frost wasn’t a normal everyday feature.

“Neither did I until today, to be perfectly honest,” I said as I sat up. The sun was starting to dip through the canopy; I’d clearly been out for a while. I glanced around where I was sat, looking for flashing lights, but the Nuzleaf seemed to be the only pokemon about for now. I swallowed a sigh of relief as the Nuzleaf began to speak again, rolling an apple towards me and gesturing me to eat. Still weak from my fainting fit, I obliged eagerly and wolfed the apple down as he spoke.

"I also didn’t realise that Cubones could learn Ice Beam either though, so call this man here ignorant if you wanna. That scared the bejeezus out of me, kid. I’m not a fan of high powered icicles.” The Nuzleaf’s leaf drooped a little as he remembered the earlier ordeal, speaking in a thick southern drawl. Now I had sat up and thought about it, I hadn’t realised that Cubones could learn Ice Beam either, but the more you knew I guessed. “What’s a kid like you doing in Lush Forest anyway? What are you, level five? Six? This is no place for you alone, especially at your age.”

“Dunno. Was hoping you might be able to tell me that, because I don't remember a thing before today,” I replied between bites, finishing my apple with a flourish. I shivered as I spoke, sparing a glance to where I was sat as I threw the core of the apple into the thicket. The vicinity was completely frozen and now I had woken up thoroughly, I could feel that the cold had seeped into my marrow. (I made another personal note of that pun for later.) 

“What do you mean you don't kno- amnesia? Amnesia in a dungeon?” The Nuzleaf looked at me, baffled yet amused at the same time. “Do you remember running at least? You’ve got a good pair of legs on you, kid. Came crashing through that bramble at a bazillion miles an hour; you nearly took my leaf clean off!" 

“Oh, I can tell you that part. Bunch of Beheeyem came after me headbutts a’ blazing and I’m an amnesiac who just so happens to be a shiny. I was worried they were gonna try and take my organs for analysis or something, see if they’re shiny too,” I recalled, my unseeable brow furrowed; the Nuzleaf suddenly roared in laughter, hooting as if I had told him one of my better puns. “What? I’m not wrong, am I? Is it wrong to fear being probed?” I pouted, a little insulted. 

“Well, um. Fuc- Ahem. I’d say so,” The Nuzleaf struggled not to burst into laughter again whilst I glared daggers into him ( _what was so damn funny, huh?_ ). “You’re a real riot, kid. Do you happen to have a name, Miss Shiny Amnesiac?”

“I’m Thyme. Know that much at least,” I muttered, deciding to ignore the previous outburst of laughter. 

“Pinolo,” The Nuzleaf replied. “Is that Thyme for the time of day or Thyme the herb?”

“Thyme the herb,” I said as I shook some of the cold and salt out of me. “How long have I been out?”

“Few hours. Been trying to get you up all that time, too. Lush Forest is not a place to be taking a nap.” Pinolo gestured behind him into the bushes; I saw several pairs of irritable glowing eyes in the thicket and a small pile of knocked out Pokemon, most of which were Grass type, none of which were bipedal Psychic types. I cursed my lack of observational skills internally; I had completely missed the pile in my previous assessment of the area. “Luckily, I’m level thirty and this place is generally filled with ferals of a particularly low level, so I could cover your back.”

“Oh! Um. Thank you,” I said, my previous irritation with the Nuzleaf evaporating. “But why would they just randomly attack us? I’m not up to date on general attack procedure and stuff considering but I don’t see the reason to attack someone that isn’t a threat. Like you said, I'm a kid.”

“Huh. You really don’t know nought do you? This is a Mystery Dungeon you’re in! Dungeons are areas of strong supernatural presence that exist all over the world, mostly isolated from the outside with only a few ways in and out. They change shape every few hours and corrupt those that live in them that do not have a strong enough individual will until they join the dungeon hivemind, which includes that pile of losers. Their general attack procedure is to attack until you’re half dead at the least, so we call the pokemon you find in dungeons feral round these parts.”

“We’re up against a bloodthirsty, violent and supernatural hivemind. Seriously?” I gaped. I may have gotten a vague explanation for a bunch of Beheeyem attacking me, but I did not have an explanation for the explanation, which would explain my persistent confusion over the topic. 

_Is... is this just normal here? This place is grim! Jeez!_

“According to a few survivors who managed to get out of it is like the wind’s talking to you and pushing you to attack, punishing failure by rearranging your home. Not nice stuff, for sure.” Pinolo yawns and stretches out his arms, cracking several bones. Before I could ask for any more details, Pinolo cut in. “But eh. Do you have anywhere to go, kid? You're, what, ten years old at the most? Yet you're out here alone. Cubone or not, you should be with someone.” 

I assumed that Pinolo’s high level gave him a wonderful amount of confidence whereas I myself was feeling a lot less ‘eh’ like Pinolo was and a lot more ‘ehhhya’ with an exclamation mark. Either way, I replied with the truth, accepting the change of subject and deciding to ask for more details later. “I’m a forest amnesiac, Pinolo. I have no idea who I am, how old I am, or where I'm from. As far as I know, I'm alone in this world.”

Okay, so not the whole truth. People may call me a fool, an idiot or a clown but even I wasn't daft enough to be advertising that, hey, I was a human! Pinolo already thought I was odd, I didn't need him to think I was mad as a Goldeen as well.

Well, not yet, anyway.

“Ah. In which case, do you want me to bring you to the village I live in at least? I don’t think it’s a good idea to be stuck out here at your level and age, even if you’re probably capable of knocking out most of the dungeon with an Ice Beam.” I considered the offer and I had to conclude that alone, I would likely not survive the night. An acquaintance Pinolo may have been, but he was the only person about who wasn't under the influence of a bloodthirsty, violent and supernatural hivemind. "You can stick about at my place until you have some ideas; I'm not exactly wanting for an emptier home."

“Can’t really object, no,” I decided. Pinolo held out a hand and I grasped it as he pulled me up, swaying dizzily momentarily as my body reawakened.  “I mean, what have I got to lose?”

“Smashing. C’mon then, let’s get a move on. We’re not awfully far from home, but I’d still rather get back before it goes dark.”

———

As Pinolo himself had insinuated to me at the moss patch passing through the rest of Lush Forest was a breeze, with him being far too powerful for the area to handle at level thirty and myself being able to rapidly take down the abundance of Grass types with an Ice Beam. A mere hour later we had exited the dungeon and I had noticed I had become slightly stronger, my Ice Beams becoming more explosive and beginning to be able to knock out the selection of pokemon that were not weak to Ice. I was not at all smug about my newly discovered attacking power, skipping a little as I pretended to wipe tears from my eyes as more and more feral pokemon fell prey to the attack. (“Don’t provoke them so much, kid; do you have a damn death wish?” “Hey, I’m already Cu-BONED!”)

“You know, I always had the impression that Cubones couldn’t use special attacks for nought, yet here you are, kicking butt and taking names. I’ve seen weaker Ice Beams from actual Ice types,” Pinolo marvelled when the exit was in sight, patting me on the skull proudly. “You must have been drinking Calcium like it was water before you lost your memory.”

“Not really sure how you’re expecting me to confirm that particular theory, Pinolo. Are we near the village yet? I’ve got brain-freeze from firing those things pretty much non-stop. I kinda wish I had a club so I could smack some _skulls_ with it as well as vomiting slushies.” Pinolo made a face as I started smirking with satisfaction, albeit with a sore tongue and chilled throat. Man, I loved and still love puns. 

“If you make one more bone pun I’m leaving you behind, egit.” I grinned wider and I saw him crack a tiny smile before he goes stony faced again. “Anyway, little miss _bone_ headed, we’re coming up on the outskirts now. Once we’re out of this thicket you’ll be able to see it.” I look at him with narrowed eyes, but began to focus on the soft sunset emerging from the boundary of the forest as we finally left the trees behind. “Just up on that there hill, kid.” Pinolo continued, pointing up at a steep hill with a crooked tree on it, pacing ahead of me and beginning his ascent. I followed, legs aching and belly emptied. At least the chill in my mouth had started to taper off at that point.

It was worth the climb however, my eyes widening at the view. A small village with lazy summer lights was nestled next to huge cragged mountains; a small waterfall ran off of the back of the slopes, pooling into an expansive tarn and from there into a collection of small ponds with each surface reflecting back the reddening sun. Even as I watched, I saw groups of pokemon coming and going, children playing in the pools whilst adults sat outside a cafe drinking and chatting as they kept an eye on their young. I could hear a jazz tune being keyed out softly, and I saw some of the adults throwing some change to a blue bipedal pokemon with a piano, who tipped their head in gratitude. Pinolo gave me several minutes to take in the view before speaking up, interrupting my survey of the valley. 

“What do you think, kid? That there is Serene Village.”

“It’s beautiful.” I marvelled. “It looks… warm.” I was a master of description and communication from a very young age. 

“Doesn’t it? I don’t live that far from the square,” he mentioned, pointing towards a small house that I could just about see when I squinted on a ledge near the waterfall. “I’d be saying we’re coming up on dinnertime, so do you wanna go to the cafe for some grub? My treat.”

“Oh god, please. My belly thinks my throat’s been cut,” I pleaded, and Pinolo laughed, gesturing me to follow him back down the hill alongside the setting sun. My body suddenly weary from the day so far, I decided it would be more energy efficient and fun to roll down the hill on my side instead of traipsing back down. I heard Pinolo guffaw at first as I began to pick up momentum down the hill, but then suddenly bark out a warning. 

“Thyme! Mind that ki-“

I collided with a soft mass and I and the person I had just smacked into oblivion both went flying into a tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! How's that for a tonal shift, huh? Anyway, meet our hero, Thyme. I hope you like bad jokes, terrible observations and a bizarre hand when it comes to prose, because she's packed her bag with those and not much else. I also hope you weren't expecting a serious and fearful character after that rollercoaster of a prologue, because that isn't what Thyme is at this point in time. Plus she has a rubbish memory. Why, she doesn't remember anything! At all!
> 
> I still feel like this is all going down a lil too fast, but compared to the in-game we have to take a couple more breaths to do it all. Next chapter continues with the rubbish exposition that Thyme will attempt to provide to you but likely fail to because she's a prat. Gotta give her props for trying, I guess?
> 
> Also, don't worry. The shininess will become relevant later. I'm not doing it for special points. Probably. Only THYME can tell, hehe.


	3. Time Waits For No Man, But Will Make An Exception For A Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The darkness ain't all that scary.

“Kid! Kid two!”

_Ehh, what? What's going off now?_

I looked down at my situation with an ache in my head, eyes unfocused. I wasn’t feeling too hot, except on my back, where it was blissfully warm and comfortable, though no sunlight was shining on me. Groggily, I raised my arm behind my back in a woozy attempt to work out what was going on. It collided thumb first into a scaly yet soft mass and I heard a faint yelp as whatever I poked retreated from my hand. 

I suddenly remembered how I had got into this situation and what I had done and I scrambled out from under the body of my unfortunate victim, watching as Pinolo bounded down the hill as fast as he could without falling to check up on us. Filled with guilt, I turned to make sure that I hadn’t turned the poor pokemon into a vegetable. 

A pair of inquisitive red eyes stared through me, intense with their curiosity. Any apologises I wanted to say dried up in my throat under the gaze, which felt eerily familiar despite my lack of memory.

_Well, I guess I shouldn’t have worried about the possibility of turning them into a vegetable._

Taken aback, it took me several seconds to break the stare that I had been returning to them and take in who I had just essentially Wood Hammered. Although they were sat down, I could tell that they would be taller than me by a few inches if we were both stood up. They had a long face and slim body, with stubby legs and slender arms, but those features contrasted with a massive three pronged fan that sprouted from the end of their curving tail. The fan was half as tall as they were, easily, larger than what would be expected.

The main thing that really caught my attention, however, was the peculiar feature that they shared with me. Glittery teal scales covered the areas usually reserved for green and the pokemon in question had a cool pallor to their cream underbelly which made them look almost translucent, as if they were made of porcelain.

I swallowed in awe. I was looking dead on at a shiny Snivy, who had a spreading grin on their face as their eyes glistened with a joy that should not be expected after being bonked into a tree. It was actually kind of cute.

“Oh my god! You’re shiny too!” They squeaked, vocalising what I was thinking. Scrambling across to me with barely hidden excitement, they grabbed my hands with a swift pair of vines and shook them up and down whilst they vibrated on the spot in glee. “Who are you? Where are you from? What’s your name?” They rapid fired at me in an unplaceable accent, leaving me dizzy. 

“Uh…” I started, dumbly. 

“My name’s Ness!” They continued, unprompted, somehow becoming even more excited. “We should be friends! I’ll introduce you to my pop!”

“Uhhh…” I started, dumbly.  

“Woah now, Ness. You’ve broken her,” Pinolo interrupted, patting me on the shoulder. 

“Mr Pinolo!” The Snivy ( _Ness, Pinolo said?_ ) stood up and ran over to jump up and down in front of Pinolo. “Can you tell me about your adventures? Please please please? Where did you meet…” They paused, scrunching their face in concentration and facing me again. “I never did get your name, did I?”

“I didn't tell you, no,” I retorted weakly. “It’s Thyme, for the herb. I didn’t get the _thyme_ to tell you that.” I heard Pinolo wince and I took the moral victory on this occasion. 

“You’re something else, kid.” He muttered under his breath so Ness didn't overhear, but I pretended that I didn’t hear him say anything.

“Thyme, Thyme, Thyme. Okay, got it!” Ness puffed up again. “So, you wanna meet my pops?”

“Uhhhhhhhh…” I started, dumbly, looking at Pinolo and pleading him for help with my eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and I began to get a cold sweat about him not being to get me out of this situation. Whilst I had the impression that Ness was alright, I was damn well exhausted as well as ravenous and I didn’t want to meet their dad within the hour I had met them without a buffer of food and a short nap.  

“We were going to get some grub at the cafe, gal. Perhaps another time?” My ears pricked at the word ‘gal’. So Ness was a girl; she had a pretty androgynous voice so I couldn't tell. “Say howdy to A.K for me, though.” Ness drooped a little, but sprang right back. I was getting even more exhausted just looking at her. 

_What sort of Grass type has this kind of energy in low sunlight? Is she photosynthesising by sheer force of will? Is she an Oddish in disguise?_

“Okie dokie, I’ll tell pops you’ll be around tomorrow!” She answered, a light blush rising to her cheeks as she grinned goofily, her wickedly long fangs exposed to the air causing me to gulp. “I’d better see you there, Mr Pinolo, Thyme. Buh bye!” And with that, she ran off into the dusk, whooping in happiness as she went.

“D…did a storm just pass through?” I inquired, breathless. The entire exchange had taken less than two minutes. 

“Hurricane Ness, yeah,” Pinolo replied. “She’s an odd one for sure, that kid, and not just because she’s shiny. Not a bad bone in her body, though, so you needn’t worry yourself about that.”

“She may not have a bad bone but I think I might,” I say rubbing my skull. “I don’t think I’ll have a skull left at this rate.” My stomach let out a whimper of discontent. “Or a stomach.”

“Do you think you can manage twenty minutes more, kid? We still have a little bit of a walk through the outer suburbs to get into the square.”

I felt my stomach digest itself.

———

“I live!” I said, melting out of my chair onto the grass with a full belly and a surplus of exhaustion. Night had fallen fully by the time we had finally made it to the cafe and had the chance to eat, but it was still warm and the cool dankness of the grass was a pleasant sensation against my skin. The Kangaskhan who was clearing our table of our scraped-clean plates tittered at my antics and gave a knowing look to Pinolo, who was sipping something pungent from a wooden tankard as he lent back in his chair precariously.

“Long day?”

“Yes,” We replied in unison. Pinolo continued, however. “This kid’s a pain in the neck.”

“Oi, that’s Miss Pain-In-The-Neck to you,” I chuntered mutinously from underneath the table, lifting my head up to glare at Pinolo. But he wasn’t paying attention, rather tilting his head towards the Kangaskhan. 

“A shiny pain in the neck? My, where have I seen that one before?” The Kangaskhan raised a scaly eyebrow as she arranged our plates on her arms ready for transport. A certain Snivy came to mind to me under the table. Amazing the impression that a mere two minutes could give you. 

“Probably terrorising A.K at the allotments, Elenor. Or riding over the waterfall on a tray at five in the morning,” Pinolo answered, paying no heed to the rhetorics of the question. Elenor snorted, amused. 

“I can certainly see Ness doing that. Do you want me to get the bill for you?”

“Please and thank you.” Elenor turned and headed back into the cafe with that, leaving me and Pinolo amongst the throng of the crowded outdoor patio as she headed back inside, waving at a petite green and charcoal pokemon I couldn’t identify setting up a stand next to the piano on the way in. The unknown pokemon returned the gesture, then returned to chatting with the Golduck sat in front of the piano. Pinolo followed my eyes to where I was looking and gave out a pleasantly surprised sort of noise before turning back to me. “You’ve chosen a good day to come to Serene Village, Thyme. It’s not everyday that Meloetta comes to play.”

“Meloetta?” I said, confused, looking at the unknown pokemon as they swished their green hair out of their face.

“The one and only,” Pinolo affirmed, explaining nothing whatsoever. “Hey! Melo!”  The pokemon swerved around and waved at us before floating over, leaving the Golduck to finish their preparations. Plonking themselves down on my abandoned chair, she began to speak in the thickest dales accent possible to produce from an oesophagus. I strained to understand her, but Pinolo didn’t bat an eyelid.

“There’s a face I ain’t seen for a while! How’re you doing, Pinolo?” She greeted, somehow not managing to pronounce a single H.

“Well as you can be, Melo! How come you didn’t tell me you were coming?”

“Surprise performance, my man! I were gonna have a chinwag with thee once I were done if you was here, and heres you are.” The little pokemon’s eyes filled with an amusement reserved for those with strong country dialects. “And who’s the tyke under the table? Were only expecting me one shiny in the crowd tonight.”

“I’m Thyme.” I introduced myself for the third time that day, cutting Pinolo off from introducing me himself. “I think I still will be the only shiny in the crowd, unless Snivys learn Teleport nowadays.”

“Don’t’s you bet on that, kiddo! Ness will be here even if her old man don’t approve once I get going,”  Meloetta laughed, the sound harsh but with no bite behind it. “The tyke is my second biggest fan, just after-“

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a real good singer, alright? And I might collect the posters. I’ll admit it, I like your act.” Pinolo said neutrally, but I saw a small blush that wasn’t caused by inebriation on his cheeks. 

“You’re a sweetie, chickie, but don’t flatter yourself; you’re only my fifteenth biggest fan. I was referring to my cute ducky over there,” they corrected, gesturing to the Golduck fiddling with their piano. Pinolo pouted.

The Golduck in question shouted and gestured at Meloetta to come back to the intruments with a frantic wave of their webbed hands. “Oops, that’s my cue. Stay right there, Pinolo. You too, kiddie-wink.” They cracked their knuckles as they drifted back towards their set-up. “I got me a gig to play.” 

Nodding at their companion at the piano, Meloetta clicked her fingers - the small lanterns proving the outdoor lighting outside the cafe redirected themselves away from the tables to create a beam on Meloetta and their accompaniment, generating a hush around the cafe as pokemon turned to look at the illuminated pixie. Perching themselves on the piano, they tapped on the top of the piano eight times before the song started on the ninth, a swing.

I was blown aback by the beauty of Meloetta’s voice. 

I was also blown aback by how proper and accent free it was. I was utterly convinced that Meloetta was some kind of vocal wizard. Off the _record_ , I’m still utterly convinced that Meloetta was some kind of vocal wizard.

Pinolo took a large swig from his tankard and wolf whistled, the knock to his pride diminished; Meloetta responded with a pair of finger pistols and a wink as they continued to sing and dance to meet the pace of the jaunty jazz tune, the pianist Golduck sweating with the exertion of playing up and down the keyboard.

I heard the mischief coming before I saw it, a patter of small light feet followed by a cacophony of heavy footsteps trailing behind, a sound I would not have heard if me and Pinolo had not been sitting in the far corner of the patio away from the show. Then in a similar fashion to an apple falling from a tree I watched Ness drop, windmilling her arms to steady herself, from the ledge above the cafe directly onto the roof with an almighty thud, mouth open wide with exertion.

Continuing my streak of bad luck that day, she sadly spotted me between rapidly sucked in breaths and grabbed me with a vine, giving me an express route to the roof myself with a tug. I made a noise not unlike a drawn out Murkrow’s call as I soared through the air to meet the infamous shiny, smashing against the roof and doing several rolls before coming to a stop next to her. “Thyme!” The perpetrator gushed, giving me a tight hug. “How come you didn’t tell me Melly was here tonight?” 

“I, uh-“ A booming voice cut me off from the ledge above. 

“Child, how many times must I tell you? Just because Meloetta is in town doesn’t mean that you can go out at night!” A Carracosta peered over the ledge down at Ness, looking ever so slightly more than miffed. 

“You said that I wasn’t allowed unless you came with me! You’re here, aren’t you?” I saw the Carracosta swallow whatever words he was going to say with a puce tinted face of indelicate rage, because Ness did have a point. With blown out eyes, he sees me and the hug that I was currently locked in and somehow gets the result three hundred and twenty-two from the sum of one plus one.

“And who are you, boy, hugging my daughter? Did you put her up to this?”

“ _Boy_ , have you got the wrong idea!” I stammered whilst getting a little bit sweaty.

“Poooops, Thyme is a girl!” Ness pouted, hugging me closer as I began to internally scream. The Carracosta expanded due to the sheer ferocity of his rage. 

“And who are you, girl, hugging my daughter? Did you. Put her. Up. To this!?” The father-daughter pair glared at each other as I wilted, preparing myself for death. I had managed a good half day in my new life and at that point in time that was plenty good enough.

 _Ah, bloody hell, they’re both idiots!_ “Psst! Ness! Let go of me!” I pleaded, my last request; Ness hugged me tighter and I began to struggle to breathe, wheezing and clambering at her arms for freedom. It did not look it due to how slim her arms were, but she was capable of bear-hugging with the best of them. I was pouring buckets of sweat. 

“I- I-I-I,” I took a sharp intake of air as I felt my vision go fuzzy due to the constriction. “I’m T-Thyme,” I enunciate, the ‘hyme’ of Thyme sounding like a death rattle. “I came here with Pinolo.”

“Pinolo!?” 

“P-Pinolo.”

“Pinolo!?!”

“P-Pinolo.”

“Pin-“

“Yes, that’s my name, don’t wear it out!” The hug that was containing me was removed as Ness was yanked off of me, limbs flapping wildly with shouts of protest as Pinolo carried her under his arm. “Now can the lot of you shut the f…” (Pinolo dragged out the F for whatever reason before continuing his statement) “…lip up! Some of us are trying to attend a music gig here!”

Shouts of agreement erupted from the patio, and someone threw a plate up onto the roof which promptly smashed into dozens of shards. The music had stopped playing, and I swore I could hear a hooting laughter from approximately where the piano was located. I would have felt bad for ruining the event if it was actually my fault, but it wasn’t, so I simply inhaled glorious, glorious oxygen as I tried not to cough my lungs out. 

The wonderful selection of hacking and spluttering noises told me I had failed. Ness had the slight common decency to look sorry from her dangle. “Uh, Thyme? You okay?” she asked in an indiscrete whisper.

“I’m good,” I replied, tears rolling down the crevice between my skull and face. A little greek tune was played for the memory of the lost plate (“May the crockery rest in pieces!” a strongly accented voice called) as I heard someone getting Dizzy Punched with disgusting force (“You had better pay for that, you damn hippo!”) and I felt that somehow, I had ended up in a place that wasn’t really as serene as the name made out. 

“Although, don’t quote me on that.” I added. 

———

I sat at a table groaning with unknown breakfast goods the proceeding day in the misty morning sun across from a considerably calmer Carracosta; a Snivy to my right wolfing down buckets of food at a breakneck pace and a Nuzleaf to my left whose irises were indistinct as he lent on the table, bags under his eyes. The Carracosta coughed as he poured a slightly less inebriating but still drug laced cocktail into a wooden mug before sliding it across to the Nuzleaf, who downed it without the liquid touching the sides. The atmosphere was humid and unbearably stuffy as the Carracosta went to speak. 

“I’ve told you about that habit of yours, Pinolo.”

“I’ve told you about your horrendous obstinance but neither of us are that good at listening, are we?” Pinolo retorted, wiping misplaced coffee off of his face. “Anyway, are the pair of you gonna apologise to Thyme here? She’s been rattly all night from being asphyxiated by your errant daughter.”

“Might’ve been the Ice Beams too,” I rattled in a sandy baritone, trying and failing to de-humidify the situation.

“Oh. Um. Sorry, child. I have a tendency to jump to conclusions and this child here,” he bumped Ness’ head with his flipper, “has a tendency to go overboard.”

“ _You_ are _not_ one to talk, A.K!” Pinolo butted in, hands over his eyes to block out the painful sunlight. A.K ignored him, which was probably the best course of action to take with the former in such a lousy mood. 

“Pops, you haven’t even introduced yourself and you’re already apologising!” Ness muffled through a mouthful of berry-bread with misplaced glee. My face was sprayed with crumbs and I wiped spittle off my face gingerly.

“For something that was your fault!” A.K snapped, before reining himself back in. “Um. Yes. My name is Akhenaten, but most call me A.K since I’m the only person in the village who can pronounce and spell ‘Akhenaten’. I’m aware that you are already acquainted with my daughter, Ness.” Despite his rather unusual name, A.K spoke in that same unplaceable accent as his daughter, only much deeper and rougher. 

“Hell yeah, she is! Another shiny, pops! Can you believe it?” Ness’ sparkled as she leant over the table to gleam at her father as well as grab an apple from the convenient fruit bowl in the middle of the table. Girl could eat for awards. 

“Language, child! Where are you learning this profanity from, I’m going to have a stern word-“

“You, pops.” Ness pre-emptively replied, taking a bite from her apple.

“Damnation!”

“Stop being so loud,” Pinolo moaned as he slid a piece of beige paper onto the table towards A.K. “Just sign this so I have a countersign to hand in to the academy for Thyme so I can go back under my blanket in the dark for a couple more hours.” A.K’s brow scales headed skywards.

“You’re entering Thyme into the academy? At her age, wouldn’t she be enrolled somewhere else by now?”

“If she is, she don’t remember, so I’m gonna enrol her. Just in case. She’s likely to be crashing at my place for the foreseeable future.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t see a reason not to sign, I suppose. Do you have any ink on you?” Pinolo rummaged through his bag before tossing a square compact tablewards and landing it in a fried egg. A.K retrieved the compact daintily through a napkin with both flippers whilst flashing Pinolo a look of irritable disgust, but popped open the compact and stuck his right flipper in, waving the inky appendage over the paper and slapping the lid closed again before hurriedly passing the compact back to its rightful owner to be stowed away again.

“Thanking you, A.K. I’m gonna have to love you and leave you, I’m afraid. My bed calls.” Pinolo scooted out of his chair, which squeaked across the floor. You coming with, Thyme?”

“I’m not old enough to drink booze, so I don’t need to be hiding from sunlight.” I hinted, helping myself to one of the eggs and a slice of toast. They looked absolutely delicious when the compact ruptured one and I didn’t want to miss out.

“Huh? Oh. Right. Be back by twelve then so we can hand this form in together.” Pinolo staggered off in a zigzag, eyes shielded, through the open doorway into the outside world. I worried that he would end up in the waterfall, but shook the idea from my mind as Ness tapped me on the shoulder. 

“Looks like you’re gonna be coming to school with me, Thyme. Gosh, I’m glad a friend’s going to be at the same school as me!” The sentence just spoken irked me, but I could not determine how, so I simply nodded with a face full of egg and swallowed. 

“What’s it like?”

“Um… there’s teachers and stuff? Oh, and we have a dungeon in the forest! It’s really cool!” Ness bounced up and down in her chair. “They won’t let me go in though. They say I need to learn control or something. Yeesh!” A light seemed to come on in Ness’ mind as an excited grin spread across her face. Glancing over to A.K to make sure he wasn’t listening, she leant over and whispered a question to me. “Hey, Thyme. You wanna go to the Foreboding Forest with me?”

“Aren’t you _foreboding_ from going in?” I jested. The pun went over Ness’ head to my great displeasure.  

“Nah, that’s from School Forest. Foreboding Forest is fair game. So, you in?”

“Uh…” I started, dumbly.

“Cool! We’ll finish up here and head over, then. You really should try pops secret recipe oran bread, though! I’d give it a solid… eight out of ten in tastiness.” She shoved a slide of the berry-bread directly into my mouth and shut my mouth with her vines and despite how the bread had entered my body, I did have to admit, the stuff was good.

“Hmph. It was a bad batch since _somebody_ ate an entire basket of fresh oran berries from the field, Ness.” 

_Looks like someone wasn’t satisfied with a mere eight out of ten, ouch. That’s a higher rating than I would ever hope of getting in anything. What’s wrong with a little better than average every now and then?_

“I can’t help it, pops! They’re too delicious.” Ness countered, licking her lips.

“They’d be more delicious in oran bread if you would learn to wait!” A.K whined, looking at the eight out of ten berry-bread as if it had just Hyper Beamed his grandmother. 

“I think the bread is good?” I tried to suggest, but faltered into a question under the crestfallen look from the Carracosta. A.K wailed in anguish and whisked the bread away, stomping off into his kitchen. Ness leapt off of her chair, gave me a thumbs up and gestured for me to wait before tearing down the corridor and swerving into a room, leaving me alone in the dining room nursing a glass of juice and eating a fried egg.

“Good is not good enough!” I heard A.K shout amongst a congregation of clanging pots and pans as I sat awkwardly at the table.

_Oh dear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to exposition, population: a dozen puns. Maybe one day Thyme will get to score? But wait! Here's Ness, a joke absorbing lump. Whoops. Thyme and Ness, the combo infernal - chaos and puns. One cannot live whilst the other survives and all that. 
> 
> As you've probably guessed already, I've named all the Pokemon EXCEPT for legendary pokemon (which will be explained more later), since the fact that only you and your partner have names and no-one else has always seemed quite unnatural to me. One of my goals with this fic is to make the PMD universe a little more lived in, ya' know?
> 
> UPDATE, 30/6: I'm finishing college for summer next Friday and I have the next chapter written already (I just need it to be checked over by my beta and I'm planning to illustrate a scene, fingers crossed) so with any luck I'll finally get to update this during the weekend next week and afterwards keep a schedule of maybe once a fortnight, at least until I enter university. 
> 
> I've tweaked the chapters already posted so they flow better and explain a little more, plus I fixed some errors in tense here and there. I'll probably end up doing minor revisions like this on previous chapters pretty often, so if you're an Eng Lit god feel free to point out anything that irks you and I'll see what I can do to fix it.
> 
> Oh, and if you're wondering (you're probably not), when I write Thyme's dialogue I have a generally neutral but ever so slightly scots accent in mind (thus the 'aye's and 'oi's and whatnot, she drags out her vowels a little). Ness speaks in an accent you'd identify as 'british' but of the kind doesn't really exist outside of acting you'd find on shows on BBC 1 on a Saturday night, which is why Thyme can't place it. So yeah. There's that, since it's unlikely that Thyme is ever really going to have a reason to describe her own accent. That's kind of odd, even for her. 
> 
> As for Meloetta's, that's partially inspired by Adele and partially inspired by my mate who speaks broad Yorkshire yet sings and plays in a band for actual money.


	4. Darkness Does Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's one hell of a hole you're digging, girl.

_“Ugh, the weekend is almost over. That sucks. I hate going to school. It’s so bor-ring.”_

_“Hear hear. Plus we have to share our air with that stupid shiny idiot there.”_

_“God, you guys are horrible!”_

_“Oh, really? Hey, Roberto, what do you think?”_

_“M-me? Well, I-“_

_“Oh, who cares! Roberto, are you gonna go and go in and do it or what? Or are you chicken?”_

_“N-no… I’ll do it! Give me that ink!”_

———

“Looks like another scorcher,” Ness commented as we walked down the path alongside the river’s edge away from her and A.K’s house, peering into the sun as she rearranged her small leather satchel to pass me a skin filled with berry juice. I accepted the skin gratefully, flicking the cap open and downing it. 

“Yeah, no kidding,” I panted between gulps of the tart juice, wiping some sweat from my arms ( _why do I, a reptile, sweat so much? I know Cubones are warm-blooded but this just takes the cake_ ). This forest excursion couldn’t come quickly enough if it would get me out of this sunlight. “Is it always this hot here? How much longer do we have to walk?” I asked in a notably less grating and sore tone as I passed the skin back.

“We just passed the square, so… a bit?” Ness shrugged, clearly unbothered by the current temperature, the damn photosynthesiser. “But! I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she gestured at my empty hands, “why you don’t have a club? Aren’t Cubones supposed to always have one?”

“I, uh… I’m a special attacker? I don’t need a bone, it just gets in the way.” I lied, thinking of my Ice Beams. 

“Are you? Really? But you’re a Cubone!” I fired off an Ice beam into the river, making a tiny glacier and letting it drift down the river. Ness clapped, impressed. “Wow, neat!” Watching the glacier drift down the river gave me an idea.

“Is the Foreboding Forest next to the river? I can make us a boat if you can’t be bothered to walk, which I can’t be in this heat.” 

“Oooh, can you? Do it!” Ness bounced up and down, excitement coursing through her veins. Not one to back down from an affirmation such as that, I turned to the river and spat out another Ice Beam, leaping onto the floe I created and sitting down on the blissfully cool sheet. A dip on the opposite side of the floe told me that Ness had mounted the makeshift boat, too. “Wow, I wish I could use Ice Beam. The best I can do with special attacks is Twister myself!” Ness demonstrated by whipping her tail around, causing an adorable mini water flume to form on the water’s surface and go tearing down the river behind us, barely a foot tall.

“That’s still a pretty neat move. Anything cool on the Physical side?”

“I’m an expert in using Vine Whip! I also can do…” Ness’ tail began to glow with a dangerous blue sheen, “This!” She flicked her charged Aqua Tail into the river, using her leaf as a makeshift paddle.

We were flung down the river at what felt like terminal velocity, half of the river now on the path next to it. I clung to the floe for dear life screeching as Ness whooped, shouting in glee every time we skipped across the water in a sickening lurch, bouncing up and down and up and down and I was feeling rather queasy. I clenched my eyes shut as tight as they would go to avoid throwing up, but I couldn’t stop the consistent ‘ah’ noise blurting out of my huge mouth.

Pinolo may have commented on my high special attacking proficiency, but that had nothing on Ness’ sheer attack power. I made a note not to wind her up for no reason, especially considering the fact I was a Ground type. The thought of being Aqua Tailed into the cold embrace of death _grounded_ me, heh. Or should I say it made me marrow-se? 

After an amount of time that was way longer than I would have liked, we lost the force of the strike and went back to gently drifting down the river, the floe spinning in a wide circle. I wasn’t letting go of the damn floe if it killed me, though. I preferred being the master of my own speed and fate.

“You can let go of the floe now, Thyme, hehe!” I didn’t respond. “Thyme?” Ness asks again, prodding me in the back.

“I’m not letting go of the damn floe if it kills me,” I mumbled into the ice. “I prefer being the master of my own speed and fate, please do not do that again, ever.”

“But this is our stop!”

“Huh?” I peeled myself from the floe and flipped my eyes back open, my skin cooled nicely from the ice. We were no longer next to the quaint little path and forest, but were instead surrounded by curling purple vines with berries that were certainly toxic and rashes of nettle patches that were itchy just to look at. The ebony trees seemed to be possessed as they creaked, their branches coming down to ghost over us with purple leaves as we sat on our rapidly melting boat. 

“Yeah, I’d say this is pretty foreboding, personally.” I commented as me and Ness leapt back off the boat onto the bridleway, narrowly avoiding getting stung by nettles as we landed in a dying growth of dock leaves. Looked like the nettles were winning this war between good and evil. 

“Isn’t it awesome? I smell adventure,” Ness inhaled and exhaled slowly. “And it smells _great_.” Reaching into the small satchel again, she pulled out a pair of bangles with oval slots in them, one red and the other orange, and passed them both to me. I turned them over in my hand curiously, the cool weight of them fascinating me. 

“What are these?”

“Looplets! The red one’s for you, the orange one’s for me. Can you put mine on my tail? I’d do it myself but I’m no good with the clasp ‘cause I’m butter-vined.” I obliged, attaching the little orange bangle just below her fan and tapping the small clasp shut with my thumb. As I did, it began to radiate a faint orange glow which flooded up Ness’ body before going out. 

“Woah, what did that do?” I blurted out.

“Attack Looplet! Raised my attacking power a little; I ‘borrowed’ it from my pop’s cabinet, shhh. I was gonna get you an Attack Looplet as well, but my dad only had the two Looplets in the draw and they were Attack and Special. But you said you were a special attacker anyway, so I guess I’m luckier than I thought!” I looked at the Special Looplet again, spinning it on my thumb-spike as Ness rambled on at high speed. “You gonna put it on or what, Thyme?”

“Oh? Uh, yeah.” I halted the spinning and clicked the Looplet onto my right wrist, fumbling with the clasp but eventually shutting it with a sharp click. A warm claret light pours out of the Looplet and I feel something in me relax and expand as the light worked its way up my arms, down through my pulse and into my core. As the light dimmed, I felt that I could do a thing that no Cubone should be able to do.

Knock out a pokemon with only special attacks. Okay, I’d already proven I the necessary power required to adequately act as a solely special attacker, but now I felt I was capable of more. I fired off an Ice Beam into the concern inducing nettle patch to test out my new-found strength.

The nettles didn’t even freeze; they simply exploded into innumerable shards. Ness clapped as I took a bow, a weight of dry ice dropping off of our bodies and dumping itself onto the rest of the nettle cryo-mations. Inspired, Ness readied a Vine Whip, aiming for a tree on the other bank. The tree didn’t stand a chance; it simply exploded, sending splinters raining into the water. I clapped and Ness jumped towards me, grabbed my hands with her own and swung me around, giggling. 

“I think they work!” she laughed victoriously as she stopped swinging us around. “So let us be off! Adventure awaits!” she continued, impersonating the tone of a seasoned, elderly, and curiously British colonial explorer as she frog-marched down the path, bag swinging dangerously around and threatening to smack her in the face. Chortling myself, I go to follow, the wood no longer seeming as dark with our newfound strength. 

———

_“Um, guys? Roberto still hasn’t come back yet. It’s been three hours.”_

_“He’s a Goomy, Cherri. He’s not exactly going to be racing through.”_

_“Yeah, but still… shouldn’t we go in and make sure he’s okay?”_

_“Into the Foreboding Forest? Pssh, yeah, right. Do we look stupid? We could get really hurt in there!”_

_“Yet you’d send in Roberto in, the youngest kid in class? You guys are awful! I’m going in after him!”_

_“No, Cherri, you can’t, you’re too delicate… ow!”_

_“I’m four levels higher than you, Brad! Do you think you can stop me?”_

_“N-no… Fine! We’ll give the loser another half hour then we’ll head in, ok?”_

_“Hmph! Alright.”_

_“…”_

_“…”_

_“… Hey, Brad, Cherri. I think I hear someone coming._

_———_

As it turned out, when Ness had said ‘our stop’, she actually meant that there was a good twenty minute walk through the increasingly cool forest to get to the dungeon entrance. Throughout this time, my enthusiasm drained continuously as Ness got more and more wound up and excitable, skipping and flapping her arms as she shouted for me to walk faster, faster! I had to practically sprint to keep up with her and I was getting tired.

I was also slightly annoyed that Ness decided not to say that the Foreboding Forest entrance was not actually next to the river, but decided to keep it to myself; we had shaved off a good amount of journey time on the boat, after all. 

“So, anyway, Ness, you didn’t… really tell me much… about this school earlier,” I panted, hoping a conversation would slow her down enough for me to grab my breath. “Can you… tell me some more?” Much to my relief, Ness slowed as she considered the question, swinging around in a circle to face me as she jogged backwards.

“Not anything I can think of off the top of my head,” she eventually replied, shrugging. 

“Well, what are the other people in the school like?”

Ness stopped dead. I jammed my heels into the ground hard so I didn’t slam into her, but only managed to do so marginally, the tip of my skull tapping her head. Reeling back out of Ness’ personal space, I saw a look of what could only be described as unease, emerged vines trembling and wrapping around her shoulder-leaves. It did not suit her.

But as quickly as the emotion had come it had passed, a smile coming back to her face and vines dropping to her sides. “Pssh, who cares about those guys?”

“Well, me. I am gonna have to spend time with them, after all.” I replied, throwing caution out of the window in return for a break. Ness faltered a little again, vines approaching her shoulder-leaves again before she caught herself and retracted them completely. 

“You don’t need to spend time with those guys! You can just stay with me, alright?” Ness said this with a degree of finality that I couldn’t really resist, so I nodded and began to walk again, Ness coming in line with me and not sprinting off ahead again to my immense relief. “You can stay with me,” she said again, in a whisper that I wasn’t entirely certain that I was supposed to hear. 

We walked in silence for a minute before it became too much to bear. “Ness?”

“Yeah?”

“How much further is it?”

“We’re coming up to the… entrance… now…” Ness trailed off and I glanced at her. 

The little colour that was in her face drained out. Worried, I touched her arm. 

“Ness?”

“They’re here,” Ness choked out, suddenly appearing smaller. I peered into the area where Ness was looking. A trio of pokemon was milling around an archway of twisted branches (which I assumed was the entrance of the dungeon proper, with the way the air seemed to be iridescent behind it) discussing something that was inaudible from this distance. As I looked, the smallest of the group spotted us, nudging the other two to attention. 

Ness whimpered a little, but continued to walk. As we approached closer, I was able to determine what species the pokemon were; the smallest was a Shelmet with a scuffed shell, the tall one was a prim pink spring Deerling with long eyelashes, and the other was a well groomed but leery Pancham. As we got closer, the Pancham sneered.

“Well, well! Who do we have here?”

“Hi, Brad,” Ness muttered back, her vine brushing against her left shoulder-leaf. The joy of adventure had left her eyes, leaving only a slitted red pool behind. 

“Did I say you could talk, _Darkness_?” Ness winced. 

“That’s not my name,” she squeaked, utterly unconvincing. 

“Whatever, _Darkness._ You don’t even know what your real name is, do you? So I might as well give you an appropriate one.” Ness looked away into the trees. “Hah, can’t even think up a comeback? How pathetic, you crappy blue Snivy.”

“Knock it off, Brad.” The Deerling cut in with a pretty but extremely high voice, glaring the Pancham called Brad down before letting out a tinkling laugh (which made Ness flinch). “You’re so into being mean to Ness you haven’t even seen the new kid.”

“Okay, Cherri, god.” Brad rolled his eyes dramatically and looked to me, looking neutral for a few seconds before taking in the green. Eyes bulging and mouth gaping, he looked between me, Ness, me, Ness before finally deciding to acquaint me with his sparkling wit. 

“Who the hell are you?!” he spluttered, taking a step back.

“Thyme,” I spat, curtly, glancing at Ness as she slipped a vine over my back. She was still pale, but had a small smile on her face. 

“Time for what?”

“Uh, Brad, I think that’s her name,” the Shelmet suggested.

“Shut it, Mick! What I really wanna know is how there’s not one, but two shiny Pokemon right in front of me!”

“We walked,” I couldn’t help but snark. “Do non-shiny pokemon like you have a different method for getting around?”

“Stop being such a pedant!” Brad whined, looking at his two friends for help. The Shelmet, Mick, obliged, hopping forward in defence as the Deerling looked at her hoof extremely intently. 

“At least we’re not shiny.”

“That’s nice. Do you have any other redeeming qualities while you’re at it? Wit? Intellect? Comebacks that don’t suck?”

“Ugh.” The pair clearly weren’t certain how to deal with me.

“Why are the two of you here?” Cherri asked in her high soprano tune, ignoring the other two. 

“We came to go into the Foreboding Forest,” Ness intoned, pointing into the dungeon with her arm. 

“What?! Are you mad? That place is full of Poison and Flying type ferals!” Cherri gasped, getting the attention of the other two. 

“Well, _Thyme_ , looks like you’re not going to be great against all those Grass types in there either, heh. I’m looking forward to you ending up back at the entrance, Boneless.”

I sent an Ice Beam careening past the group, narrowly missing Brad and hitting the archway, which froze. Watching the group open and close their mouths in shock, I began to laugh harshly. 

“You were saying? Get out of the way,” I narrowed my eyes as I walked into the group, “before I make you get out of the way.”

The pair of boys scrambled away obediently and I nodded in appreciation. Grabbing Ness’ hand, I began to pull her past the group into the archway, feeling the air warp around us as we passed through the opalescent skin separating us from the outside world as Cherri wished us good luck. Once we had, the barrier went opaque, only leaving the path ahead open.  Ness finally breathed again, squeezing my hand. 

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. Who the hell does that Pancham think he is?”

“…A big meanie.”

“He’s gonna have to be bigger before he can try me.” Seeing the way that Ness wouldn’t meet my eye, I sighed. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so. After all,” Ness started as began to puff up to her normal size again, realising she was out of the woods by entering the woods, “I’m on an adventure!” 

Pointing to myself and winking, I could not help but add a little correction: “Not quite.” Ness looked at me curiously for several seconds until the cogs in her head slid into place, a look of ecstasy emerging over her face.  

“You’re right! _We’re_ on an adventure, so why are we just hanging around? Let’s go!” 

And with that, she legged it down the corridor, whooping. Wheezing a little in shock, I forced my already weary body to run after her before she went out of sight. 

“You bounce back too fast, Ness!” I muttered to myself as my breath already began to leave me.

———

Ten minutes later, I had finally managed to reach the first clearing, the passage to a deeper portion in front of us. Despite the warnings that the group of kids by the entrance had spat at us in an attempt at intimidation, I had yet to have seen any feral pokemon as I had gone from a sprint, to a jog, to a crawl. 

Ness had gotten to the clearing long before I had and was sitting impatiently on a choked out stump, legs kicking into the dead bark and flaking it off. It was clear she had been there for a decent amount of time as a rather large amount of wood chippings were in a pile directly under her seat and her face had popped out with the amount of air she was forcing into them in petulance. Winded, I attempted to sit down, but ended up collapsing on the tail I forgot I had instead, which hurt considerably more than I was expecting. 

I was too tired to bother to get back off my tail though, so stayed on it as Ness jumped from her perch and began to speak: “I’ve been waiting, you slowpoke!”

I attempted to retort but only whine spiked air came out as I slowly rolled to the side off of my tail, landing in a dead pile of something with a squelch arm first. Ness prodded me with a vine in my back. “You still alive?” I groaned in response to that question, gulping in more air. 

I made a resolution to start doing cardio if I was going to be having to run after my nutter of a friend. Finally recovering enough to form a coherent sentence, I suggested something. 

“Maybe I should lead. And maybe we should slow down.”

“Slow down?!”

“Would you rather be able to talk to me and not have to wait for me or to have to do this every ten seconds?” 

“…Gah, alright, fine, you can lead,” Ness conceded, tapping her foot impatiently,  “Can we go now?”

“Five minutes.”

“Three minutes.”

“Four minutes.”

“Three and a half minutes.”

“Deal.” 

“Now.” Ness suddenly amended in a thrilled tone, shaking my shoulders rapidly and mushing up what I had left of my brains. Muttering indistinctly about the virtue of patience, I began to slowly rotate on the ground to face her as I rebutted her suggestion.

“I still have over three minutes, give me a… chance…” I faltered as I saw what Ness was seeing. 

A pack of a dozen Furfrou, all with matted and greying coats that contained everything from branches to stones to blood (that did not look like it belonged to the Furfrou itself by the way it splattered around their jaws). Forcing myself to my feet with the burst of adrenaline that burnt through my veins, I could not help but comment: “Looks like my _thyme_ is up and if we do not _fur-ee_ now these _cubones_ will soon be underground.” 

Unfortunately my comment came out more like a jibbering rambling mess than a witty statement and Ness didn’t so much as roll her eyes as she batted me clean out of the way with a vine into a disgusting pile of sticky loam when one of the pack tried to barrel itself into me with a Take Down. Looking at me with a degree of excitement that should not be experienced in such a dire situation, she yelled: “I’m no good with taking out Furfrou; give me a hand already, Thyme!”

Remembering about the ability Fur Coat and the effect it had on physical defence, I nodded at Ness before I fired an Ice Beam directly into the Furfrou that attempted to take me out, sending it flying into a septic pit of purple fluid. Luckily for me, the ice now covering the Furfrou now stopped it from getting back out and attacking me. Luckily for the Furfrou, the ice incasing it was acting as a buoyant and stopping it from drowning in a septic tank, which was not an ideal way to go. 

Pulling myself from the loam, I snapped my eyes away from my victim over to Ness, who had ensnared another one of the Furfrou with her vines and was firing Twisters into it between eerily cheerful bursts of shrill laughter, one after the other, until the Furfrou went limp after the constant barrage of attacks. She flung the unconscious body of the Furfrou into the remainder of the pack which caused them to back off momentarily, hackles flared.

“There’s too many of them to take them out one at a time!” I shouted, watching the pack slowly close back in on us. Staring into their strained eyes, I could tell that the next attack would not be a convenient one-at-a-time manoeuvre like before, but a coordinated team alliance. If we did not work a way out of this, my personal bones would be mingling in this forest alongside my borrowed one and those of a reckless Snivy.  

“You’re a special attacker; don’t you know any moves that could take them all out at once or something?” Ness panted with a gleam to her eyes ( _how are you enjoying this, bloody hell_ ), swiping the pack away with her vines whenever they got too close, interrupting their advance. The pack was starting to adapt, however, and before long her vines were covered in bites, green tinged lymph leaking from the wounds. 

I fired Ice Beams continuously and wildly, knocking out whomever I hit amongst the many misses and frozen fauna, but whatever in my body was producing the energy was starting to weaken, and eventually only wisps of cold air came out of my mouth no matter how hard I tried to fire more beams. It looked like my luck had finally run out, with no backbone left in me.

 _“How am I supposed to know what moves I can do? There isn’t a convenient list here, and I’ve not exactly been living as a Cubone my whole life!”_ I screamed internally. 

“I don’t know what moves I can do other than Ice Beam!” I eventually admitted as we were forced to back off away from our escape route as the Furfrou snapped at our heels.

“What?!” Ness’ head whipped around as she whipped the pack back, wincing when one Furfrou crunched down hard on a vine, causing it to go floppy and unresponsive.

“I only remember things starting from yesterday!” I babbled, the half-truth spilling out with nary a thought involved.

“What?!” The pack continued to close in and we were rapidly reaching the impenetrable mass of twisted tree growth as we backed off, away from our escape passage. 

So how do I remember what moves I know, can I ask- ow!” I spluttered as my tail was unexpectedly penetrated on the thorns of a bramble, drawing blood. 

_Stupid pointless tail!_

“Just… just use the move!” Ness cried unhelpfully, leaping into the air and smashing the Furfrou that had clamped down onto her vine with an Aqua Tail; this caused the Furfrou in question to yelp in pain as it crumpled into the ground and released Ness’ duff vine, which laid limply on the floor unable to be retracted in its mangled state. 

The pack retaliated by all leaping onto the smirking and panting Ness all at once, even as she charged another Aqua Tail with a dangerous look in her eye. Filled with fear for my new companion, I shrieked like a valkyrie and smashed my foot into the ground in instinct. 

Pillars of earth boiling with metamorphic tension barrelled into the pack of Furfrou from below, the heat from the event warming me both physically and mentally before anger flashed in my mind once more. Stomping again with intent, I forced another collection of pillars to emerge and fried the entire pack of airborne Furfrou into unconsciousness just as Ness swept her tail in a wide arc, sending the pack flying in all directions away from us.

“Earth Power?” I marvelled, looking at the scattered pack of Furfrou in shock, my hands shaking with the sudden loss of adrenaline. Ness barked in laughter as she came over, bum vine trailing after her.

“Nice! I thought if I did something flashy you may well do too,” she giggled, an unhealthy amount of enjoyment in her painful swagger. “That was so cool! What did you say that move was called again?”

“Uh, it’s called Earth Power…! Hey! You let yourself get piled on purpose!” I gaped, eyes bulging. Ness shot me a victory hand gesture with a fang filled grin. “Are you mental?” I continued. “There was no guarantee I’d’ve been able to pull something off!”

“Nah, I knew you had it in you! You are my precious friend, after all,” Ness said matter-of-factly as she reached into her satchel again, pulling out two huge oran berries and a pint bottle filled halfway with a sweet looking brown liquid. She tossed one of the berries and the bottle of liquid to me. “Drink that Elixir; you ran out of PP on Ice Beam, right?”

“You could’ve died!” I tried to rebuke, not quite ready to let this one go.

“Not without finishing this adventure first! Are you drinking that or what?” Ness muffled through eating her oran berry, winding her floppy vine up and over her shoulder with no tenderness at all even as it continued to leak copious amounts of lymph.

I began to think that coming here was a bad idea, especially with someone who thought kamikaze was a legitimate battle tactic. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back B)
> 
> So, Ness? What's going on in that head of yours? 
> 
> Thyme? How are you so... comfortable with this? Have you considered why you bonded so fast?
> 
> Since this is the first instance of a fight scene in the story, I'm going to use this end note to explain how I will be using the beginning note in the case of more extreme occurrences. I dislike spoiling things at the start of the chapter, so anything milder (such as Ness' vine injury) will NOT be mentioned in an opening note. There shouldn't be an instance that I will have to add a beginning note for a long while, but ground rules, innit. 
> 
> (If you're wondering why I've suddenly risen from the ashes, I've been having what is most commonly known as a 'massive depressive episode' due to various factors, which had pushed this project onto the back burner whilst I got my shit back together. Honestly, I still haven't got my shit together but now college is over I'm hoping to get over this bollocks and give you more rubbish before I'm carted across the country for uni. 
> 
> Anyway, I unfortunately do not have illustrations ready as my tablet has vanished into my hubris, but I hope you enjoy reading a little more.)


	5. What's a Witch Without a Wand?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Biting the dust doesn't require losing yourself, only someone in the vicinity.

After restoring ourselves sufficiently in the clearing where we had wiped out the Furfrou pack so we didn't look like we had nearly died, Ness and I began to travel deeper into the forest, Ness absolutely blasé and me paranoid as we snaked through the trees. Ness rambled long descriptions of the plants and environment in her now familiar rapid speech to me as we went, gesturing wildly with her one good vine at anything even slightly out of the ordinary. Whilst I was genuinely listening to her ( _honest_ ), I cannot recant what she was waffling on to me about because I only understood one word out of three in my nervous state. Also, most of what she was saying had too many syllables for my liking. The word 'abscission' isn't one that should really come up in casual conversation. 

Even as we battled other ferals, her mouth did not stop flapping; when a Skunky started clawing at her back she punted it with an Aqua Tail into the air so hard I thought it had escaped the confines of gravity. 

“Anyways, as I was saying, it’s a good thing you came with! I’ve never ended up in a Monster House before; you know, a room that groups of ferals hide in to ambush explorers? But then again, that move - Earth Power you said? That’s going to make any other ones we end up in a piece of cake. Hitting anything in your range of vision? That’s amazing! What type is it, though? I mean, I know you did say Earth Power, but it kinda looked a little like a Fire Type move to me. Oh, wait, no, don’t tell me. I reckon it might be one of those dual type moves you get sometimes,” she gassed as she strangled a Starly with a vine, swinging it around and hitting other ferals with the makeshift morning-Starly before flinging the unfortunate flying type into the undergrowth. “So, if you know Ice Beam and Earth Power… Wow, what other moves could you have forgotten?”

I did not answer, as I was looting something off the body of one of the ferals that Ness’ attack had taken down. Curious about her ramblings being ignored, Ness sauntered over to see what I was so enamoured with, leaning her head on my shoulder as I turned the curious object around in my hands. 

It was a stick, clearly, but not a type of stick that should be in such a decaying forest. It was a lustrous shade of deep mahogany, with four tiny autumnal leaves that faded from a crimson down to a sienna on the tips. The end of the stick curled in on itself in a manner that was clearly unnatural, and the surface was smooth and varnished. Ness answered my unasked question: “That’s a wand! Looking at the colour of that one, I think that’s a Blast with four charges left in it,” she explained, pointing out the leaves. “They’re pretty rare, good job noticing it!” 

Gripping the wand in my right hand, I could not help but think that it felt natural to hold, perfectly sized for my palm. Guess I did have some sort of messed up Cubone instinct after all. “How d’you use it?”

“Only one way to find out! Mind that Bellsprout!” Ness dodged swiftly out of the way as a Bellspout fired a volley of Razor Leaf, leaving me with a bunch of leaves stuck out of my stomach and in one nostril. Mind flashing red due to the pain, I ran up to the offending feral and whapped it over the head with my wand, causing a leaf to fall off and drift slowly to the floor. 

The Bellsprout exploded. 

“That Bellsprout exploded,” Ness pointed out.

“Yeah, that Bellsprout exploded,” I agreed, looking at the twitching pile of vines on the ground that used to be the Bellsprout, which had exploded.

“Wanna head on further in?”

“Yeah, aye, that sounds good.” I paused. “Am I gonna be arrested?”

“Doubt it, they’re still alive.” Ness poked the pile with her vine and it sniffled, making me feel awful enough despite the injuries it had inflicted on me to place an oran berry that I had plucked earlier in the forest next to the poor git with a whispered apology before I trailed off deeper into the forest, Ness following.

———

After pulling the leaves out of me and leaving me with a wonderfully profuse bleed plus a nosebleed that didn’t want to stop even twenty minutes after the initial event, we set back off again into the woods, me in front with a trail of blood behind me and Ness behind with the tip of her vine dragging across the floor. I was covered in soot from the explosion of the Bellsprout, but there was no way in hell I was washing it off in the stagnant water of the forest with all the cuts I had. I wanted to die whist saying heroic, not of blood poisoning.

Ness found my appearance amusing anyway, at least, proven by the way she would glance at me and snort between fights. I resisted the urge to do rude gestures that needed more fingers than I had and instead looked at the Blast Wand, which I still gripped in my right hand but had not used again, three leaves clinging to the curl at the top. I felt drawn to the shape, the polish, and the destruction that came about with a simple wave of an arm. Holding it just felt right. 

 _A bone has nothing on this,_ I thought. _Would I still feel the same if I did end up with a bone club rather than with nothing? What would an actual Cubone do with a wand in this situation?_

“You really like that wand, huh?” Ness giggled, making me jump and nearly drop the wand, juggling it like a baton before gripping it again. Blushing, I averted my eyes from where her voice was coming from. “You’re an odd one. A special attacker, no bone, no memory… I reckon the other Cubone wouldn’t like you at all, considering what I know about them!”

“You’re one to talk! Snivy are generally defensive fighters that rely on their speed and ability to inflict status and attack from afar, yet you jump right into it and use physical attacks! You’re supposed to be a Sni-per, not a Sni-dy git!” I spluttered, hugging my wand like a long lost lover and pouting. Ness didn’t reply, being too preoccupied with uncontrollably laughing into a tree, banging a fist against the bark. I'd clearly hit her funny bone. “Oi, stop that! What’s so funny?”

“Ahahahaha! Oh my god! H-hugging your wand! Like it’s your baby! Congratulations!”

“Shut it!”

“Hehehehe!” she continued, not shutting it.

“I’m going without you!” I shouted, walking off. “I’m wand-ering off with or without you!” I couldn’t help but add. 

“N-no! Wait! Stop-pffffft hahahaha!” Ness finally and eventually calmed down and wobbled after me clutching her chest, but a huge grin was still present on her stupid gormless face.

Myself slightly miffed and Ness eyes too filled with tears of mirth, neither of us noticed the huge and absolutely dead tree in the clearing in front of us with a tarp sprawled over its lower branches. 

Until we nearly walked straight into it. 

Crying out in surprise, I jumped back, flapping my arms, before I saw that the tree was not going to cause any harm. Ness let out a slightly disappointed noise as she examined the tree. 

“If we’re here at the tarp tree, we’ve reached the end of the dungeon. Damn, I was enjoying that,” she groaned. “We’ve only been in here an hour at the most!”

“That’s a good thing for me, though. Pinolo did say to get back for twelve. If we head back now, we should be back before then. What time did we leave? Eight?”

“Eight, yeah. Should be about half ten now, I thin-“ Ness stopped abruptly, looking past the tree. Curious to what she had seen, I looked to same place she was. It wasn’t another pack of Furfrou, was it? My heart couldn’t take that. 

It was not. An extremely short but pudgy purple pokemon was lying deflated on the ground with a set of limp antenna laced in ink just under the lowest edge of the tarp, which appeared to be some kind of soft leather. The whimpering noises told us the Goomy was still alive, and Ness ran past me to shake the small dragon type. “Roberto! Roberto!” she cried.

“N-Ness…?” The Goomy replied in faint voice with an ever so slight accent. Ness sighed in relief as I walked over to the pair.

“Mhmm, it’s me. Did the others put you up to this?”

“D-don’t look…” The Goomy, Roberto, mumbled. 

“Don’t look at what? The tarp?” Ness asked, immediately ignoring Roberto’s request to not look by looking at the tarp.  Her relief immediately vanished, leaping away from the Goomy as if his skin was on fire. “Y-you!’ she screamed as Roberto trembled, apologising profusely. “You too!?” A vine smacked the terrified Goomy and he immediately stopped whimpering, knocked out. 

“What? What’s on the tarp?” I asked, turning around to look at whatever had upset Ness so. It was covered in a multitude of symbols that resembled footprints, but nothing I could see that was offensive or terrible. Why was Ness so distraught? I looked to her for some confirmation, but it was clearly taking all of her to avoid bursting into tears, her one good vine scrunching her left shoulder leaf in an attempt to calm herself down. 

“I’ll show them. I’ll show them, you hear. I’ll show them,” she repeated as I watched, uneasy. Then without warning she fled off past the tree, leaping into the bush.

“Ness!” I yelled, running after her.

———

_Here lies Ness, she will shine no more. Killed by the one thing she does adore._

———

Although under normal circumstances Ness would have left me miles behind as proven by our earlier escapade, it was not long until I had grabbed the arm of the Snivy and yanked her back. Wailing, she tried to escape, but with only one vine and covered in wounds she didn’t have enough strength to get out of my grip. She was a hair’s breadth off of hysteria, and I could see her composure ripping at the seams. “Let go! Let go! Let go! Let-“

I let her go. She was too shocked to run, sniffing as her pupils dilated to adjust to the new-found gloom of the deep bracken. 

“I know I’m being stupid. I shouldn’t have hit Roberto. I shouldn’t have run,” she breathed, guilty, collapsing onto the floor. I had to decipher the message a little because her speech had become so fast it slurred. 

“What was on the tarp anyway, to make you upset?” I had to ask. I was acutely aware that the cheerful, over the top Ness wasn’t the entire Ness at this point, but to me the reaction was out of absolutely nowhere and I was nothing if not confused. 

“Huh? Didn’t you read it?” 

“I didn’t, no.” There wasn’t anything to read on that tarp that I could see, so of course I hadn’t. Whatever Roberto had written must have been absolutely tiny. 

“…Nothing important. I... I’ll tell you later,” Ness burbled. I sensed our relationship was not quite deep enough to pry out that fact yet, perhaps not ever.

“Okay.” I stood up, hefting Ness up with me. “If you’re willing to admit you were wrong for attacking that Goomy, I think he should hear it himself. C’mon.” I turned back and began to encourage Ness to walk back the way we came, holding her hand. 

“Aren’t you mad with me?” she mumbled, looking deep into the bramble and not at me.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little mad, but what good will getting angry at you do?” I sighed. “Though I’m not sure how, you were provoked, yeah?”

“Yeah, but, uh, we won’t be able to get back there without entering the dungeon again. We’ve escaped the distortion and we’ll probably end up at the entrance if we turn back. Also,” Ness wiped at the end of my nose with a vine, “Your nose is still bleeding.”

“Aw, seriously? I thought it had finally stopped,” I whined, rubbing a sooty arm across my skull’s nostrils and leaving a streak of claret blood down over the black of my arms. 

“Nope!” Ness laughed quietly, returning to a more cheerful demeanour though her eyes still gave away a little sadness.   

“Damn it,” I said with no real bite as light began to pour from an opening in front of us. Pulling myself from the bushes, I was met with shrieks. “Oh, what is it now?” I snarled under my breath, my patience finally wearing thin enough to snap. I had been through a lot in past two hours or so. 

“M-monster!” A familiar high pitched voice cried. Cherri had scrambled away from us, half on the ground in shock. Brad and Mick were also similarly indisposed, holding onto to each other and squealing. 

Oh, yeah. I was a sooty bloodstained mess with a skull for a visible face. I forgot I looked like I crawled out of hell itself. I shrugged and left the idiots to their own devices, pulling along a now mirthful Ness who was cackling like a witch; the kids thought this was me, and screamed a little louder as we walked off, fearing for themselves without need. 

_Can’t they see my back is clean? Are they averting their eyes? Ah well. I’ll just wash up at the river._

“Roberto,” Ness whispered to me, unwilling to bring the point up herself.

“You should go in and get your friend. He’s been knocked out. Go now,” I hissed. Although I couldn’t see them, I could feel them nod and scramble towards the still frozen dungeon boundary, very willing to comply. “I said now!” I barked, irate. 

“Y-yes, Bone Witch!” Brad choked out as he bolted into the dungeon away from us. I ignored him, and the first time my eventually infamous name was uttered as I walked away, shaking my head. 

———

Freshening up at the river’s edge outside the boundary of the dungeon’s influence, I felt a little more like myself again. Ness joined me in washing, and before long the muck and bullets that had coated our skins had washed themselves into the flow not to be seen by our eyes again. With the introduction of the water, our bleeding wounds finally started to heal into scabs, and I felt the stinging pain that had not realised I was experiencing fade away into a more acceptable ache. I’d be feeling this trip for a while. Clean, I finally allowed myself to dip my head into the water and drink before I sat back, poking at the deep wounds on my stomach. “Ow,” I noted, deciding not to poke them again. 

“Not sure what you were expectin- ow,” Ness winced as she poked her own wounds. 

“Great minds think alike, I see,” I snarked. This started a mini water war as she splashed me, and I splashed her back, leading to more and more water being flung until eventually we were soaked through, having pushed each other into the river. Looking at the battle-worn Snivy to my side, swimming clumsily with her arms, I decided on something, something I wasn’t entirely sure I was permitted to think about a person who I had known for less than a day.

_Partner._

Ness suddenly called me, breaking me out of my reverie. “Thyme?” 

“Hmm?”

“Do you wanna do this again sometime? Check out dungeons, I mean.”

“What, and get attacked and beaten up to the point that we scared some people that you don’t like again?” I raised my eyebrow, but the statement was facetious with no bite. Sure, I had been a paranoid wreck there for a while, but thinking back over the experience I found it to be rather enjoyable.  

“Oh, okay…” Ness drooped a little, not twigging onto the fact I was joking. 

“I’m kidding, you egit. I’d love to have another adventure.” Ness lit back up, her smile taking up most of her face. 

“Really?!”

“Really really.”

“Really really really?”

“Really really really really.”

 _“Yes!”_ Ness looked ecstatic as she dragged herself from the water, shaking herself to knock the water off. I followed her out of the river, basking for a short while in the sun before I overheated and had to roll into the shade. Thinking a little and remembering something, I sat up and asked a question to Ness, who was still laying in the sunlight looking like all her birthdays had come at once.

“What time is it?”

“About half eleven?” Ness said, squinting at the sun. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting Mr Pinolo in half an hour?”

Yes, I was. “Oh, bones.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ended the first adventure of the duo that put the 'in' in 'infamous'. Time is going to accelerate a little from this point as we enter the school portion, as is Thyme as she begins her cardio workouts. 
> 
> Not totally happy with this chapter, but I'm posting it so all you lot who have been enjoying this have something to read. This chapter is VERY likely to be completely overhauled once I've become more competent. Anyway, I'm still alive. I'm going to university in a week and I'm excited! Huh? What am I taking? Art? English Lit? Nah bruh; Geology.
> 
> Actually, while I'm here, Snivys are really popular in PMD fic, huh? Like, seriously. I think Ness is the only female one, though. Maybe all of us can have a competition to see which PMDfic Snivy is the best. Obviously I'm gunning for Ness. She's my baby.
> 
> As always, feedback is nice, as is pointing out my horrific grammatical mistakes so I can fix them.


End file.
